- 1519 * "Now, as I believe
I wrote to your Majesty, certain of those in my company who were
friends and servants of Diego Velázquez were vexed at
what I did in your Majesty's service, and indeed certain of them
were desirous of leaving me and quitting the land, in particular
four Spaniards, by name, Juan Escudero, Diego Cermeño,
Gonzalo de Ungría, pilots, and Alonso Peñate. These
men, as they afterwards confessed, had decided to seize a brig
which was in the port together with a certain amount of provisions
in the way of bread and salt pork, kill the captain and set sail
for Cuba to inform Diego Velázquez of the vessel which
I was sending to your Majesty, what it contained and the route
which it was to take, so that..." Hernán Cortés.
Five Letters of Cortés to the Emperor, 1519-1526.
J. Bayard Morris, translator. New York: Norton, 1969, pp. 31-133.
The Second Despatch of Hernando Cortés to the Emperor:
sent from Segura de la Frontera on the 30th of October, 1520.
http://www.dickinson.edu/~borges/Resources-CortesLetter.htm(2/iii/03)

- 1542 In 1542, the Portuguese
explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo saw the Farallon Islands but
missed the Golden Gate. In 1579, the English explorer Sir Francis
Drake also sailed right by. He may have anchored in what is now
known as Drake's Bay, just north of San Francisco. In 1595, the
Portuguese explorer Sebastian Rodriguez Cermeno entered Drake's
Bay. He named it Puerto de San Francisco (Port of Saint
Francis) and so established the name San Francisco for
the region. Web for San Fco. 11/01

-1575 *There IS a Sebastian Rodriguez
Cermeno (I think it usually has an ~) who landed in Drake's Bay
in 1575.

-1595 ** "This is taken
from"The Cermeno Expedition At Drakes Bay" -1595- A
research report of the Drake Navigator Guild. By Raymond Aker,
Drake Navigators Guild 1965. Page 8- Little is known of Sebastian
Rodriguez Cermeno. He was appointed as captain for the voyage
on the basis of his professional skill. Luis de Valasco in a
letter of recommendation to the King, April 6, 1594, stated that
although he was a Portuguese, he was very skilled in navigation,
and that, besides, there were no Spaniards in the profession
to make the discovery; he probably meant that at that time there
were no pilots available in Mexico competenet for this particular
task. As previously mentioned, he was probably the same man as
a Sebastian Rodriguez, a pilot on the Manila Galleon, Santa Ana,
when that vessel was captured by Thomas Cavendish in 1587 and
may have been the same Captain Sebastian Rodriguez named in the
court records in Manila in 1625. Cermeno's real name was Rodriguez,
the former no doubt being his mother's name, sometimes spelled
Sermeno or Zermeno." Rosalind Sermeno Lozano, 2/viii/03

2.3.3 Cabrillo's Intrusion. Cortés himself led a reconnaissance
of Baja California in 1535, and seven years later, in September
1542, Kumeyaay people on what is now San Diego harbor met a seaborne
expedition from Mexico led by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo.
Colonial authorities sent the explorers to chart Alta California,
the name they gave the territory from San Diego harbor northward.
The Kumeyaays were apprehensive and hostile. They had apparently
heard rumors of depredations of the Coronado expedition in New
Mexico. Perhaps they had also heard of slaving expeditions like
the one that Cabeza De Vaca had encountered in northern Mexico.
They drove off the sailors.
Farther north, the explorers kidnaped Chumash children so they
would have interpreters in the future. Chumash people attacked
the expedition on San Miguel Island, in the Channel Island, and
Cabrillo suffered a broken arm. He apparently died from an infection.
The main discoveries of the Cabrillo expedition were that adverse
winds made sailing northward near the Pacific coast difficult,
and that the native people of Alta California were neither rich
nor submissive.
Seeking an intermediate harbor for trading vessels coming from
the Spanish-controlled Philippine Islands, explorers were make
three unsuccessful attempts over the next sixty years to find
a good harbor in California.
Native people on the central coast quickly chased away the Unamuno
expedition in 1587. A valuable galleon from Manila, commanded
by Sebastián Cermeño, was wrecked while searching
for a California harbor in 1595. A conflict with native Californians
over possession of ship timbers led them to drive the sailors
out of their country. A few survivors walked to Mexico.
Seven years later, the Vizcaíno expedition set out from
from Acapulco to find a northern harbor but took six months just
getting to San Diego harbor because of contrary winds. Vizcaíno
claimed to have found a good sheltered harbor, Monterey Bay,
but it was not as good as he said it was.
Vizcaíno reported no poor relations with native people,
but that may have been because his exploration was superficial.
In 1606, when Spanish influence in the marginal territories of
New Mexico and Florida was entrenched and subjects of other European
nations were on the verge of developing permanent colonies, the
Spanish government prohibited further exploration of the coast
of unpromising Alta California. # http://courses.csusm.edu/hist337as/sp02/c37te
(2/ii/03)

Cermeño's Encounter with the Coast Miwok. In the Archives
of Seville are several records of the voyage of Sebastián
Rodríguez Cermeño to California in 1595. Cermeño's
own account was translated by historian Henry R. Wagner and published
in the California Historical Society Quarterly, 3:12-15 (April
1924). The following portion contains Cermeño's description
of his encounter with the Coast Miwok people at Drake's Bay on
the Point Reyes Peninsula in Marin County: "[The Indians
here] are well set up and robust with long hair, and go entirely
naked, only the women wearing skirts of grass and deerskins....
Having anchored in this bay on the 6th, shortly an Indian, one
of those living on the beach, came out in a small boat made of
grass which looks like the bulrushes of the lake of Mexico. The
Indian was seated in the middle of this, and he had in his hand
an oar with two blades with which he rowed with great swiftness.
He came alongside the ship, where he remained a good while, talking
his language without anyone understanding what he was saying.
Being addressed with kind words, he came closer to the ship,
and there we gave him things such as pieces of silk and cotton
and other trifles which the ship carried, and with which he returned
to shore very contented. The next day, the 7th, four other Indians
came out to the ship in the same kind of boats. They came aboard
and did the same as the first one." http://www.californiahistory.net/3_PAGES/manilla_miwok.htm.
(2/ii/03)

-1965 * The first
part of the exhibition looks in depth at how Chicano posters
function to stimulate political action, build community, oppose
U.S. immigration policies, and promote solidarity with international
liberation movements. Posters became a primary tool for communication
and mobilization within the Chicano activist movement for political
and social justice, especially in supporting the United Farm
Workers (UFW). Andrew Zermeño's famous poster, Huelga!
of 1965, introduces the UFW eagle, which became a key symbol
of the movement. http://cemaweb.library.ucsb.edu/graphexh.html
(2/ii/03)